partingissuchsweetsorrow

And that’s primarily because the Elite 8 games were tremendously disappointing. It all began Friday when all four games were decided by 15 or more points. The highlight? Stephen Curry, the English major. Saturday: a blowout and the Tyler Hansbrough show. Sunday: a blowout and Davidson nearly blowing up every bracket in the blogosphere. If that’s not enough blowing for your liking, there’s always Jay Bilas and Tyler Hansbrough’s Will, and Jay Bilas and Tyler Hansbrough’s Heart.

(Aside: How bad was Dick Enberg Saturday night? We found little or no fault with any of the announcers this weekend, but Enberg seemed to struggle tremendously with fouls, possession, and famously, the stat sheet and Tyler Hansbrough’s “nine” assists. But the guy’s 73 and he’s a Capricorn, so it’s all good.)

So Memphis/UCLA (Tigers favored by one) and UNC/Kansas (Heels favored by three). This seems like fun. Of course we’d prefer Stephen Curry and the Wildcats (and his mom) to the lucky-as-hell Bill Self, but it’s hard to find fault with what appears to be two fantastic matchups.

Our early, worthless picks are Memphis – we give small advantages to Rose over Collison and Anderson (who has been their unheralded defensive star in the last two games) over Westbrook – and Kansas. This may change once or twice during the week, of course. You’ll have four days to breathlessly breakdown the matchups, and 96 hours to pray that Joey Dorsey talks idiotic smack about Kevin Love the way he foolishly went off about Greg Oden last year.